Blood Drops
by DreadNot
Summary: A series of shorts written to explore 100 themes with Dark Walter. Spoilers from vol. 7 forward can be expected. 1.6 Schism
1. 1 1 Return

_I have taken a claim for the LiveJournal hellsingdrops community, committing to explore one hundred themes with Dark Walter. I'll be posting each of my theme fics in this collection, which should tell a semi-cohesive story over time. However, each chapter should be taken as an individual ficlet rather than a traditional narrative. _

_Return uses the themes Hunger, Order, and Rebirth._

_Hellsing and all of its characters belong to Kohta Hirano, Dark Horse, Geneon, and/or whatever other corporate entity has licensed the Hellsing portion of Hirano's soul. I make no claim to ownership of these characters nor any money from my fanfiction writing. _

* * *

**1.1 Return**

_I do not know how long I can hold out against that chap over there!_

_Return alive at all costs. Swear it._

_As you command. _

Return alive at all costs.

Return alive.

Return.

_I swear it._

"Wake up, Butler."

Butler opened his eyes, squeezing the left one closed almost immediately. The faces were familiar, but from where? The language sounded wrong in his ears, but he understood it.

He was Butler. He knew that much.

_Return._

He had to return… where? He didn't know, but he knew that he would do it. Following orders gave his existence shape.

He glanced around for the source of the echoing order, taking in the laboratory in a sweep of his eye across the room and its occupants. The man leaning over him looking nervous was who?

He took the gleaming disc with dangling chain that the nervous man handed him and turned it over in his hands. Almost of their own accord, his hands moved, settling it with practiced ease on his nose and attaching the clip to his ear. He opened his left eye and blinked until both eyes focused in sync.

"Good. Good." The nervous man seemed to be speaking for his own benefit and not Butler's. He made notes on a tablet computer and pushed his lank blond hair away from his face.

"Butler, sit up."

Something felt wrong when he complied; it was too easy. Shouldn't there have been some aches and pains? Some resistance from his body?

Why did he think that? Did it matter?

Whether it mattered or not was moot when the man who had spoken to him looked toward a door and snapped his fingers at the man in a grey-green uniform standing there. Butler stared at the uniform feeling anger rising for no reason he could identify.

He was just baring his teeth in an unconscious snarl when the door slid open and a young blonde woman stumbled through, looking confused and frightened. The snarl dropped away and he stared in hopeless fascination at her.

_Return. _

Was this the speaker?

As he watched her hug herself and heard her first sob of terror, he knew she was not the speaker. This person could not give an order that carried the power of the one echoing in his head.

But she had a power. It beat from her in a rapid, fluttering rhythm, and the rhythm drew him up off the table. It drew him to her as though she were a lodestone and he the iron.

"What are you doing? I'm not a soldier. Just let me go. I'll leave London. I'll leave England. You can have it all."

She looked up into Butler's grey-green eyes and shrank back from the sudden red flare there. "You're one of _them." _

No. He was not one of them. Whatever they were. He was Butler. Something else.

Something hungry.

The Doctor watched his creation feed, tearing open the woman's throat without compunction or hesitation. It was wonderful, but oh so dangerous. He chewed his finger and looked at the gloves sitting on the specimen tray next to the lab table where Butler had been born.

He would have to bring the toy out to play because the Major was done waiting. They had their shitlike war and he wasn't going to wait for Butler to be perfected.

Terror was so much fun. Even his own. The Doctor picked up the gloves and waited for his creation to finish his first meal.


	2. 1 2 Girding

_Themes used: Ring, Gloves, Angel_

* * *

**1.2 Girding**

Dropping the body of the woman who had been his first meal, Butler looked around the laboratory.

The nervous man in the strange multi-lensed spectacles held something in his hands that called to Butler with a siren song of death and destruction. He crossed the scant space between himself and the man and held his hand out expectantly. He registered the man's flinch away from his sudden advance and sneered without altering his expression an iota.

It was coming clear to Butler that he was something rare. The man who had woken him had the power to give commands to those in the uniforms Butler recognized with a venomous loathing, but he feared Butler himself. If the man could give orders but feared him… what was Butler?

_Angel. _

He snapped his head around, looking for the hauntingly familiar voice. There were no angels here, only devils.

He was peripherally aware of the nervous man's shift in posture from someone who appeared ready to collapse under the weight of his own fear to an intent individual with an icy sharp stare.

"Butler." The peremptory tone was entirely unlike what he'd heard from the man before and Butler found himself incapable of doing anything except giving the no-longer-nervous man his full attention. "You take orders given in this language only. Do you understand?"

_Return. _

Butler kept his eyes fixed on the order-giver's face and nodded curtly. Still those two words tumbled in his head, spinning around each other as though they were somehow related. One spoken in a deep male voice – _Angel; _ the other a woman's voice that carried the ring of command – _Return. _

He pushed the riddle aside and distracted himself with the original objects of his attention; he still held his bare hand out, and after a moment's careful scrutiny, the man put a pair of fingerless gloves and a handful of rings into his palm.

Butler felt a leap of excitement he couldn't trace. The gloves felt new. He tucked the rings in his pocket and pulled the leather sheaths on, spreading his fingers and stretching his hands to get them comfortably tightened. His bare fingertips seemed heightened in their sensitivity in contrast to the skin covered by the form-fitting black leather.

He fished a ring out of his pocket and examined it. It was a familiar, comforting weight in his fingers. He slipped it on, and with a habit seemingly trained into those bare digits, turned the ring until a tiny hole in the dully-gleaming grey metal faced his palm. He repeated the process nine more times, and then, on impulse, waved his hand.

Ingrained habit took over once again and Butler watched virtually invisible filaments thread out from the rings. A quick flip of his wrist, and he pulled the pen out of the watching scientist's fingers. Out of curiosity, he gave his wrist a slight twist and jerk and watched the pieces of pen fly in three different directions.

He regarded the results with satisfaction and looked speculatively at his observer, wondering how much effort it would take to do the same with him.


	3. 1 3 Education

_Themes Used: Hunter; Predator, School, Names, Chains; Bonds_

* * *

**1.3 Education**

"Major says he wants it."

"It isn't ready." The nervous man was scribbling on his tablet and having Butler perform some small tasks with his wires to test his dexterity. Butler stopped to look at the newcomer, a small person who looked like a child with strangely feline ears.

The nervous man spilled a large container of multicolored straws out onto the metal table and snapped his fingers for Butler's attention. "Sort them by color, using the wires."

While Butler began the task, sorting through the straws with a dexterity that was no less surprising to Butler than to his observers, the nervous man pulled the boy aside.

"Warrant Officer Schrödinger, go tell the Major that this is too delicate to just cobble together and expect it to be safe."

"No way!" Schrödinger wrinkled his nose and backed toward the door. "You want to tell him he can't have his toy on his birthday, Doc? You'd better get it topside before the Major sends someone taller and less talkative to come get it."

Before Doc could retort, Schrödinger ducked back out the door and scampered away, almost skipping on his way down the hall.

Butler was found the task set him so simple that he had no difficulty following the exchange between Doc and the Warrant Officer. Now those two had names and Butler filed them away just as he had everything since he had woken.

Doc grumbled angrily to himself, the words blending into an unbroken stream of syllables as he expressed his reservations about putting "it" into play so quickly. He slammed a door open and removed a black case, which he brought to the table where Butler was nearly finished with the sorting.

"Give me your right hand." He took Butler's hand, grumbling still. "I haven't finished the calibrations and he wants to play." He shook his head and pulled a braided cord out of the box. "I'll patch it together for now until I can do more." Tracing the underside of Butler's wrist with his fingertip, he jabbed a pair of metal leads through the skin, holding Butler's hand still with unexpected strength.

"Quiet," he muttered absently. Butler subsided, watching as his skin healed over the contacts, leaving a pair of protruding posts. Gesturing for the other hand, he repeated the process and picked up the cord. "This will stretch and won't impede your mobility. I can't have you useless. Not such a good tool." He snapped contacts on the end of the cords over the leads on one wrist and wrapped the cord behind Butler to clip the other end on the other wrist. "That will keep you leashed."

Butler had watched carefully for the entire process, trying to fit this odd procedure into what little he knew of his world. What he understood was that he was something that Doc feared, and that understanding roused predatory instincts in him.

Why couldn't he just kill this man and do whatever he wanted?

Doc glanced up and met his eyes. "I know what you're thinking." He shook his head and took what appeared to be a remote control out of the box that had held the cord and the contacts in Butler's wrist. His pressing one of the small buttons on the controller corresponded with Butler dropping to his knees shuddering with wracking pains throughout his body.

The pain stopped and Doc's order brought him back to his feet.

"You don't have thoughts of your own. You do as you're ordered. Remember that or those chips sitting on key nerve junctures will make you tear your flesh off your bones to try to make the pain stop."

Butler fought to stop the residual muscle spasms from whatever Doc had done and nodded his head fractionally at the man. He still had much to learn, but that was a lesson that would not be forgotten.


	4. 1 4 Naming

_Themes used: Power, War, Zeppelin, First encounter_

* * *

**1.4 Naming**

"Follow me," Doc said peremptorily and left the room without looking to see whether Butler obeyed or not.

Butler glanced down at his wrist and remembered the pain that would come with disobedience. He had no reason to think there was anything worth that pain – at least not that he'd encountered yet.

Wordlessly he followed the man out of the room, past the guards flanking the door. He twitched his fingers as they approached them and caught their suddenly startled eyes. Their fear had a flavor and he savored it.

He absorbed every detail as he followed the bloody white coat through dimly lit corridors. Something about the place felt wrong – as though they were not in a building, but moving.

Following Doc up a set of metal stairs, he understood why he had felt that way. He stopped in the doorway that led to the surface of a great zeppelin, transfixed by the sudden array of sensory input.

He was suddenly bathed in the full intensity of war.

Butler stared down at the burning city. Memories stirred in the back of his mind and he groped for them only to have them slip through his fingers like minnows in a swiftly moving stream. He watched a soldier tear a child from its mother's arms and bury his face in the child's throat. The clarity of the image was striking, as though he were standing there on the ground to witness the killing in intimate detail.

He could taste the heat of the blood that would be flowing in the soldier's mouth, he could feel it on his fingers and spraying over his face, the mixed smells of blood and war filled his senses until Butler nearly went to his knees under the force of it.

_Angel._

He stared down at his bare fingertips and saw them pushing snow away from a cold blue face. A small hand in a white glove caught his and pulled it away from the frozen skin under his touch.

He looked up to see who touched him, but the vision faded, leaving him with a clear view of the present and a helicopter.

The helicopter drew closer; it didn't take anything other than simple observation to know that it threatened the men on the surface of the zeppelin.

The filaments that dropped from his fingers flew almost of their own accord. If he'd been able, Butler would have smiled at the ease with which he tore the machine to pieces. Such power at his fingertips. It was too easy.

The words the tubby man and Doc exchanged washed over him. He heard and noted, his attention sharpening in on the small man when he heard the words, "The Death's Head is a fitting match for the Angel of Death."

Todesengel.

_Angel. _

He had been named again. He was Butler, but he was Angel.

They were not the same man.


	5. 1 5 The Order of Things

_Themes Used: Failure, Duty, Tea_

* * *

**1.5 The Order of Things**

Things were much simpler once they returned to the shelter of the zeppelin. Butler followed, listening to the fat man, who was eventually named Major by context.

There was war. There would _be_ war. Everyone who came would die. Everyone on the ground would die. Butler listened, and learned, and drew from it an understanding of his role in things.

_Angel._

In the context of what he had witnessed from the air, and the satisfaction he had felt in destroying that helicopter without any effort at all, war was all Butler knew of the world.

He was not in danger, he understood; he _was_ a danger.

And all he had to do was wait, and they'd send him out to enjoy more of war. The promise was implicit in the way the Major spoke, in the way Doc looked at him, in the chirruping comments of the little Warrant Officer.

_When you perform your duty…_

It will do as programmed…

He's going to make confetti! 

No one needed to do something so base as _tell_ Butler he would be going down to the ground to fight. All knew it. You do not tell a hammer before you pick it up that you are going to use it. Butler understood that he was another tool. Doc had said as much.

It was nothing but a way to pass the time between now and then to follow the requests for refreshments for the fat man's dinner theater.

His first attempt was a surprising failure.

"Tea? What am I? Some Engländer?"

Tea had simply seemed like the most natural thing to choose when he was in the galley getting the Major the drink and sandwich he had requested.

Not tea, then. Cocoa. Butler stored the information away as he returned to the galley to make a more suitable drink for the Major.

The hand that pushed the galley door closed behind him was attached to a long arm and an even longer body that Butler recognized even without memory to go with the sense of recollection. It was not a pleasant frisson of identification, but a sudden blaze of recognition born out of hate.

_Return._

He lashed out to hit the man and fell forward on his hands as the spasms of agony stole control of his muscles from him. This time they did not cut off as quickly and Butler curled around the pain in a silent ball of anguish until the big man pushed an intercom button on the wall and said, "Enough."

Doc's voice crackled out of the speaker, "Yes, Captain. I leave him in your care. You may punish him for failing this test, but do not cause lasting damage."

Finally, the pain stopped and Butler uncurled. His muscles still spasming and twitching, he pushed himself shakily upright and looked at the big man with a blank face that concealed his hostility. His fingers opened and closed unconsciously while he and the Captain stared each other down.

_Return._

He'd been here before. With this man.

And he had failed. He knew this in his soul.

If others feared him…

Butler stilled the shaking of his muscles with an effort of will.

If others feared _him_ and he had failed with this man…

Butler opened his hands at his sides and let his fingers relax. This one was beyond him and had the support of the one who held his controls in the most literal sense. He would be punished and he would not forget.


	6. 1 6 Schism

_Themes Used: Blood, Blade, Communicate, Warmth

* * *

_**1.6 Schism**

Butler held his hands open, awaiting his punishment.

He and the Captain stared silently at each other in the empty galley. There was an assault underway; no soldiers would be interrupting them by stopping in for snacks.

_Return._

For a moment, Angel blinked, seeing a darkened street rather than a well-lit galley. His fingers curled up and his muscles shook with the urge to attack the unspeaking man.

Butler regained control of himself and again relaxed his fingers as the view of the rubble-strewn street faded to be replaced by the present once more.

He watched the big man approach him, eventually being forced to tilt his head up to continue to meet the man's fixed gaze.

Instinctively, he moved faster than the hand that came up to hit him, ducking under the swing without thought. Butler blocked the next blow with a raised arm, staggering back under the impact.

He realized that he could defend himself, even if he were not allowed to attack. He danced back from the next punch and met the Captain's neutral expression with one of his own – returning nothing for the nothing he was given.

The bare twitch at the corners of his opponent's lips was all the warning Butler was given before the Captain sprang forward. The two men moved through the galley in a dance of attack and defense, making no sound and maintaining such intense focus on each other that their combat caused barely a rattle of silverware as they passed from one end of the room to the other.

Butler jumped on top of one of the butcher blocks and watched the other man, gauging his movements carefully before bringing his foot down on the handle of a knife that had been left sitting after its last use. Before it flipped past the height of his knee, Angel snapped his leg up and almost gently tapped it with a toe to change its trajectory before giving it a hard kick.

Butler froze while Angel raged, wishing death on the Captain for reasons Butler did not, could not understand. When the man slapped his palms together on the blade, stopping it in its flight, Butler took the opportunity to push Angel back down, jumping down from the table to stand in front of the Captain.

When the big man's fist flew this time, Butler forced himself to remain still. Angel wanted to duck – to prove his dominance, Butler took the punch, feeling his cheekbone shatter like crockery under the force. He staggered back and caught his monocle as it flew off, cupping it protectively in his hand.

The Captain nodded curtly and hit him again.

And again.

When the beating ended, Butler took the proffered hand to help pull himself off the floor. Angel was silent, thus the pain had been worth it.

-

Butler watched as the big man opened a refrigerator and poured a large mug of something that screamed blood to his stretched senses. His body had healed the injuries from the beating, but the blood called him; he would need it to operate at peak efficiency.

Angel stirred when the Captain stood over him and handed him the mug, but Butler accepted the drink with a slight nod of acknowledgment. He drank quickly, drowning Angel's voice with the siren song of human life stolen to feed his own.

The drink in his hand reminded him that he still had a duty to the Major to return with his cocoa. Butler turned away from the big man to find and heat the milk for the fat man's beverage.

He could feel the other man watching him as he moved through the galley collecting what he needed to satisfy the Major's desire, but it was unimportant. They had settled matters between them…

Angel stirred restlessly and Butler pushed him down again. This other – this _Angel_ – was more trouble than he was worth. Matters between him and the Captain were settled, no matter Angel's opinion on the subject. It was that one's fault they'd had to take a beating in the first place; he wouldn't give the other a chance to get them punished again.

He didn't look away from the slowly simmering milk when he felt the big man's presence behind him. Only a slight widening of his eyes betrayed his surprise when the man pressed himself against Butler's back, his hands sliding around the smaller man's waist to pull them tightly together.

His mind moved quickly, trying to make sense of what was happening in the context of what little he knew about himself and his place in this world and war. He couldn't make sense of it, but Angel's angry stirring was enough to make Butler lean back against the big man.

He enjoyed the sudden contrast of living warmth to his own cooler body. The other man's smell enveloped him, nothing like that of the woman from whom he had fed after waking, nor like most of the soldiers he had encountered. It was alive, vital, and Butler found his instincts conflicting – attracted to the vitality, but repelled by the strength of the life that was the antithesis of what he was – death.

"We will hunt," the man said, making a promise of those three words before releasing Butler. The man's scent lingered around him even as the Captain left the galley and Butler realized he had been marked. Every other vampire on this airship would smell the big man on him.

Angel raged, but Butler didn't care. In fact, Butler was coming to think that anything Angel hated, was something worth doing or experiencing.

He remembered the scene from the surface of the zeppelin – the hunting grounds that had been laid out beneath him with all its sights, sounds, and smells. He could taste the blood he had smelled in the air.

He and the Captain would hunt. They were different, but they were both predators and together they could immerse themselves in the chaos below them. Butler found himself looking forward to it as he took the steaming milk off the heat. 


End file.
